I've been an infrequent "blogger" this summer! I think some pictures are in order most of all-- I haven't posted any from my parent's visit, any from our month in China, or from our recent getaway. I'll start with the latest.

I recently made a valiant, but largely failed effort to overcome the "mafan" factor. In Chinese, this is a word that captures "pain in the rear" better than any words I know in English. Unwittingly, so many of our decisions about family life with children seem to revolve around "mafan"-- How much of a hassle will this be? So I drew a line in the sand and decided-- I simply can't decide not to do things because they will involve "mafan". The attempt to prove to myself that I had, in fact, overcome this gripping force resulted in a family vacation, a three day hop-across-the-bay to Malaysia.

My conclusion now is that I'm not sure a relaxing vacation with small children exists. They are worth the effort, definitely, but "relaxing" shouldn't be one of the adjectives used to describe a vacation at this stage of life. So we were asking more philosophical questions like "What is restful?"; "What is a vacation supposed to accomplish?"; and "At what age (of the children? or the parents??) is traveling not such the affair?" A few of our friends with older children nodded knowingly, sympathetically, affirming our findings. It really wasn't all that bad. Pictures for future scrapbooks were taken, children were entertained, and parents were humbled.

So I'll leave you with some shots of our happy moments!

Getting on the "princess boat", as Kathryn
called the "ferry".

Ellie enjoys the ride!

This grove has 1000 tiny bananas!

Fun in the pool!

Ellie strikes a pose

K feeding the goat his lunch

K at the fish pond

Malaysia sunrise on the beach